7 Years

It is truly hard to believe that 7 years have come and gone since this sweet, angelic, happy, energetic, exciting, awesome, smart, wonderful, peaceful, content, spirit came into our world.

The days just before and after his birth were not easy. His little newborn body had a lot of adjustments to make, but with the help of doctors, surgery, intuition, Heavenly intervention, and time our baby boy became an example of strength and endurance.

How did he grow from baby to boy so fast?! Every year, most days, actually, I catch myself wishing my kids would stop growing. At the same time I relish it: watching them grow, anticipating their future, enjoying their success and crying through their hardships with them. When a birthday comes along, I just have to wonder, "How is the time going so fast?! Am I doing everything I can do to give my kids the life they deserve? Am I teaching them enough - the important things?" I hope the answers are yes.

When I look in THESE eyes, though, I am comforted that at least right now at this moment I'm doing my job.

Austin-Boy, you are one amazing kid. Thank you for being the helper and the peace-maker and the hard worker and the busy-body and just for being you!

Happy Birthday, Buddy. We love you!

gluten-free birthday treats for his school class. He wanted cupcakes, but he was happy with the way these turned out.

We celebrated transformer style. Austin decorated his own cake. I was feeling like a sell-out mom letting him do it instead of making something more "fancy!" But he LOVED being able to do it himself and he was awesome to let Isaac help him. They had a good time doing it together.

Cameron was on TDY in Texas so we waited until we knew he'd be in his hotel room and put the phone on speaker. We all sang Happy Birthday and then Austin made sure to lick the frosting off every candle.

Ella looked like it was her birthday too! She was covered in chocolate frosting and wanted "more, more, more"! Isaac was pretty much covered in frosting too! Landon-boy was wiped out from football practice so I wasn't too surprised he didn't ask for more cake. But Austin really surprised me, since I was talking on the phone to Cameron I didn't notice how much Austin ate until he was helping himself to his 4th piece! Guess he liked it!

After dinner (Garlic Shrimp and {gluten-free} noodles) we opened presents. Cameron had bought Austin a camelback for me to give him and Isaac and I picked out a few other things earlier in the day. Austin was a little bummed that Isaac kept telling him what he was getting (I kept telling Isaac not to spoil the surprise and he kept insisting that it wasn't a secret!) but Austin was still excited when he opened each thing. Just looking at his face opening the presents and blowing out the candles makes me happy.

okay, so now that you're 7 do you think you could finally stop growing up? I'll give ya more cake! :)